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Men's and women's tennis teams hit mid-season break

By Gavin Keenan

After the past weekend’s ITA Regional Tournaments, the men’s and women’s tennis teams have reached the intermission of their seasons. The ITA wrapped up a brief fall season, which began for both teams in early September.

Men’s team
During the fall, the men’s team saw some impressive contributions from sophomores Phil Orno and Ryan Hamning along with senior Rob West. Orno in particular, came on strong in the fall as he became the first Viking in school history to receive a berth in the main draw of the ITA Tournament. Unfortunately, Orno was unable to capitalize on the opportunity as he fell to Notre Dame’s Brett Helgeson and Purdue’s T.J. Rose.
West and Hamning were also unable to pull out a victory in their first round matches, which eliminated them from the qualifying draw. However, Hamning was able to salvage the trip as he made quick work of Xavier’s Chris Herlinger in a consolation match.
The Vikings could not mount anything in doubles play either, as the team of Orno and Hamning were defeated 8-2 by Wisconsin’s tandem of Jeremy Sonkin and Luke Rassow-Kaster.
Earlier in the fall Orno and Hamning represented the team in the Ralph Lauren All-American tournament. After Hamning won his first round match, he was eliminated from the qualifying bracket as he was defeated in the second round. Orno was able to piece together an impressive run which saw him advance to the third round of the tournament, where he was defeated by Clemson’s Kevin Fleck.

Women’s team
The women’s fall season was highlighted by some fine individual and team performances at the Bowling Green Invitational by senior Jenn Myers and sophomore Charlotte Gibbons, who placed second in their respective singles flights. Sophomore Denisa Muntean also had an impressive showing at Bowling Green, as she placed third in her singles flight and teamed with senior Morgan Ungerott to finish second in their doubles flight.
Two weeks later, the ladies traveled to Michigan State for the Spartain Invitational. There they took down Big East foe, Cincinnati, 4-2 in team competition. The victories were posted by freshman Melissa Holzinger along with sophomores Muntean and Sanda Bjelan, all of whom won in straight sets. The final victory came by way of Myers’ come-from-behind effort to defeat Valeriya Dandik, after dropping the first set.
To end the fall season, the Vikings were unable to qualify anyone for the ITA Tournament. However, head coach Brian Etzkin was able to find a lot to be optimistic about for the upcoming spring season.
“We had a pretty good fall. Both teams faced some pretty good competition in the tournaments that they played in and that should help us out once we start to play dual matches in January,” Etzkin said.
Both teams will resume action in the middle of January when the men travel to Indiana and the women will be hosted by IPFW.

Reach this Stater reporter at g.keenan@csuohio.edu

 

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